it's the worst
Oct. 7th, 2009 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacJohn Scalzi asks his readers "to expunge one song from the history of your favorite musical artist." Some of the respondents seem to have forgotten the "your favorite musical artist" part and write entries for Dave Barry's Bad Song Contest instead, but virtually none of them address anything classical.
Taking "song" as the non-classical listener's term for "musical composition", I'd have to say that it's still a tough choice. Most of the works I really dislike are mostly by composers who receive my dislike in general, and there's not much left to say about poorer works by composers I do like. To say that I think Beethoven's Op. 1 No. 3 piano trio is overplayed is weak tea, and while his "Wellington's Victory" is so bad it's almost good, it's essentially never performed. (Contrast with Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", which is so bad it is good, in exactly the same way as "Wellington's Victory" only more so, and which I can't honestly complain about.)
But limiting to frequently-played works I really dislike by composers I otherwise really enjoy, I'd have to go with Mozart's "Haffner" Symphony, which I find annoying, in second place, and for the winner, Tchaikovsky's "Manfred", perhaps the worst symphony ever written by a composer capable of doing better. I once turned on the car radio and heard a dreadfully bad imitation Tchaikovsky, and was expostulating on its sheer awfulness to B. when it ended and it turned out to be "Manfred", which I hadn't realized as I'd long since tried to expunge it from my memory.
Then there might be a list of most disliked works by the composers who wrote them. Rachmaninoff grew to despise his Prelude in C-sharp Minor, because he was always being asked to play it, and I believe that Gustav Holst became resentful of the way "The Planets" overshadowed the rest of his work. Max Bruch wished violinists would stop playing his Violin Concerto No. 1 and pick up his other works instead, but that was because the Concerto was the only one Bruch had sold outright and didn't get royalties on.
My nominations for the non-classical side of worst by a favorite musical artist would be the second disc of the Beatles' White Album (yes, all of it) and Enya's "Marble Halls". Blech.
Taking "song" as the non-classical listener's term for "musical composition", I'd have to say that it's still a tough choice. Most of the works I really dislike are mostly by composers who receive my dislike in general, and there's not much left to say about poorer works by composers I do like. To say that I think Beethoven's Op. 1 No. 3 piano trio is overplayed is weak tea, and while his "Wellington's Victory" is so bad it's almost good, it's essentially never performed. (Contrast with Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", which is so bad it is good, in exactly the same way as "Wellington's Victory" only more so, and which I can't honestly complain about.)
But limiting to frequently-played works I really dislike by composers I otherwise really enjoy, I'd have to go with Mozart's "Haffner" Symphony, which I find annoying, in second place, and for the winner, Tchaikovsky's "Manfred", perhaps the worst symphony ever written by a composer capable of doing better. I once turned on the car radio and heard a dreadfully bad imitation Tchaikovsky, and was expostulating on its sheer awfulness to B. when it ended and it turned out to be "Manfred", which I hadn't realized as I'd long since tried to expunge it from my memory.
Then there might be a list of most disliked works by the composers who wrote them. Rachmaninoff grew to despise his Prelude in C-sharp Minor, because he was always being asked to play it, and I believe that Gustav Holst became resentful of the way "The Planets" overshadowed the rest of his work. Max Bruch wished violinists would stop playing his Violin Concerto No. 1 and pick up his other works instead, but that was because the Concerto was the only one Bruch had sold outright and didn't get royalties on.
My nominations for the non-classical side of worst by a favorite musical artist would be the second disc of the Beatles' White Album (yes, all of it) and Enya's "Marble Halls". Blech.
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Date: 2009-10-07 06:49 pm (UTC)I wonder if there's just something about Byron that inspires truly awful music. He has certainly inspired plenty of other bad art despite being a terrific poet himself.
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Date: 2009-10-07 07:40 pm (UTC)"False Knight on the Road" by Steeleye Span. Not the Hart/Prior version but either of the SSpan cuts. They're my favorite group, but I skip over this song.
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Date: 2009-10-07 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 12:12 am (UTC)As for Opus 1 No. 3, I was astonished and pleased to discover that the string quintet Opus 104, an arrangement of the former work, is superior to it.
Worst Beethoven? There's so much to choose from.
Single worst Beatles song? "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". Or "I'm Down".
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Date: 2009-10-08 02:07 am (UTC)